Edie is growing up so fast,  I can hardly keep up.  I mean just last week, she started pouring her own drinks.  What else is there? She’s potty trained and can fix her own snacks.  She’s practically grown!  And while this thought does make me want to stick out my bottom lip and pout, the truth is there are some benefits to her independence that I really enjoy.

For example, when she wakes up in the mornings, she goes downstairs, turns on the TV, and quietly plays while I lay sleeping in my bed.  Let me repeat that  for emphasis, while I lay SLEEPING in my bed.  Two years ago, I thought the idea that I would ever get to sleep past 6:00 was just a pipe dream, but I’m living proof that new mommies do eventually get to sleep like normal people again.

However even though she can turn the TV on by herself, she can’t actually change the channel.  If you have been reading this blog for any time at all, you know the love affair I am having with my Tivo box and how I think it’s the greatest invention since the eyelash curler.  But there is one down-side to it.  Edie can’t work it.

So when she’s downstairs watching TV in the mornings, she is at the mercy of the Tivo box.  Sometimes she is pleasantly surprised and finds that the channel is already on Disney from where it previously recorded the Imagination Movers at the crack of dawn, but there are those unfortunate mornings when she is stuck watching infomercials.

One afternoon while in the car, out of nowhere Edie enthusiastically says from the back, “Mommy, there is this machine that can clean our floors and our furniture and even our whole house!  And it’s FREE!  Wouldn’t you like one of those, Mommy? And it doesn’t cost ANY MONEY!”   Wow.  Do they have her number or what?

Then several days after that, I wake up one morning to her eyes peeping over my mattress.  She whispers, “Mommy, there are these shoes that you can walk in forever and ever and your feet never get tired!  Can you believe that?!  And they only cost ninety-ninety-nine!”   And I seriously think to myself, “Hmmm, maybe Ken could use some of those.”

Then at breakfast several days later, she says with a mouth full of Eggos, “Mommy, wouldn’t you like your all your fatness to go away?  There is this machine on TV that can do that!”  All my fatness will go away, huh?  I must admit, it sounds like a pretty awesome machine.

I shake myself back into reality and think, “She might be growing up pretty fast, but she still needs me around to set her straight on a couple of things.”  And who knows?  If things don’t work out with her ambition to become a princess when she grows up, maybe she can give the Sham-Wow guy some competition.

In the past four years, I’ve made a lot of poor parenting decisions.  I admit it.  In fact, my motto for the first couple of years was, “Gimme a break! I’m just wingin’ here, kid.”  I don’t always know what I’m doing, and I’ll be the first to confess that sometimes there is absolutely no logic behind some of my decisions.  However, every once in a while, I get something right, and sometimes it’s when I’m not even trying.  Take Tivo, for example.  One of the best parenting decisions Ken and I ever made, and we weren’t even doing it for the kids.  In fact, it was a birthday present to me from Ken before we even had kids, but man, has it paid for itself several times over.

To begin with, we don’t have to own a lot of kid movies.  I just record them off the TV and bring then up with the touch of button.  Awesome.  Plus, if Edie’s really in a Charlie and Lola phase, then I can record that as well to have on hand in a pinch.  But my favorite thing about Tivo (in relation to the children, that is) is that Edie doesn’t watch commercials.  In fact, I think she has seen about two in her whole life.  Ok, maybe that’s a bit stretching it, maybe three.  If her show even begins to start to break to commercial, you can bet in the next second she is going to yell out, “Can someone turn my show back on?!”  Which on a side note, completely baffles me because she will say this while I am sitting on the couch RIGHT NEXT to her and she’ll be looking directly at me.

“Yea, sure, someone can,” I’ll say real sarcastic back to her because, you know, four-year-olds totally get sarcasm.

Anyway, back to my main point, the kid never watches commercials.  She has no idea of the toys that she’s been missing out on because she’s so impatient during commercial breaks.  There is a whole world out there just waiting to advertise to her if she will just give them the chance.

There have been a couple of times I was slow on the draw and didn’t get to the fast forward button in time.  It seems like every commercial she sees, she then declares afterward that she MUST have what they are selling.  Again, just another way that Tivo has paid for itself.

Well, the other week, we were in a similar scenario, and either I didn’t hear the request for “someone” to fast forward or I was messing around on the computer and tuning it out.  (Don’t act like you don’t do the same thing with your kids!) Either way, Edie saw a commercial, and within seconds, she was running in asking if I would buy her a Butterfly Garden.  Seeing a chance to teach her a life lesson, I said, “No.  I’m not going to buy you a Butterfly Garden, but if you earn the first $15 dollars of it, I will pay the rest.”  Let’s face it, that’s more money than she has ever seen in her whole life, and I really thought she might get that Butterfly Garden sometime around her eighth birthday.  But I momentarily forgot that she is a product of Ken McKibben.

She washed every dish she could get her hands on, and she hosted another lemonade stand.  She picked up leaves in the front yard after her father trimmed the shrubs, and she even straightened her brother’s room for a quarter (which took a lot of pride swallowing since she didn’t make the mess).  She was not above asking family members to donate to her cause, but don’t worry, I always followed up that she needed a chore to perform before she could take their money.  And she scrubbed the bathroom mirrors at the first sight of smudges.

It only took her two weeks before she had saved enough to meet her end of the bargain, and so, I made good on my promise.

Edie is now the mother of four hungry caterpillars.  She spends a large part of her day watching over them and giving us minute by minute updates on their shenanigans.

Running into the kitchen from her bedroom, “Look Mommy!  Arthur is upside down!” or “Shhh!  The caterpillars are all sleeping.”

I wish I could remember all their names, but Edie is asleep right now, so I will have to introduce them all to you later.  But for now, here are the four newest members of our family in all their caterpillar glory:

DAY TWO

Several months ago I was lamenting about how I hadn’t been on a vacation in over a year.  Well after a month of traveling all over the eastern side of this great country, I am officially ready to be home and settled back into my mundane routine. 

I’m sure in a couple of weeks those words will come back to bite me, but for now, I’m ready for normal bed times and my makeup back in its designated drawer.  The past few days I’ve been taking pleasure in the simple things like a baby-proofed house with toy stations in each room or just knowing where all the dishes are in my kitchen…and don’t forget, the Tivo.  That by itself was worth coming home to.

This past week, my mom and I took the kids on our annual trip at the beach.  Every September Ken goes out of town for work, and it has become our little tradition to pack up and head south with my mom.  We have only one rule for the trip and that’s to relax. 

That’s not always easy to do when you bring two children with you, but this year was one of the best.  Edie is finally at an age where she loves playing in the sand and jumping in the waves.  Most years she’s been scared of the ocean or frustrated with the sand on her hands and feet, but now, at the ripe old age of three and a half, she’s a beach lover.

Roark, on the other hand, not so much.  I was already prepared for a wrestling match with him on the beach since he’s crawling now and refuses to stay in one place.  We tried bringing a little pool for him to splash in and layed out several bamboo mats for him to play on, but he was rolling around in the sand within minutes. One good handful of sand to the face, and he was done with the beach.  After that first day, we decided that our beach time would be during Roark’s morning nap, and my mom was sweet enough to stay indoors in the condo with him. 

Edie has become a master at meeting new friends, and each morning she would find a playmate already soaking up some fun in the sun and ask to join in.  This was wonderful because then I got to do something that I haven’t been able to do since these precious babies came into my life: sit with my toes in the sand and read a good book.   It was as wonderful as I remembered it.  Don’t worry…I kept a good eye on her while she played, but I also totally took some time for myself to just enjoy sitting on my bum.  Something I rarely get to do, as in, never.

We’ve had a blast this past month that we’ve spent traveling.  My only regret was that I haven’t been able to record all the memories that we’ve made over the past few weeks.  However, my motto with the blog (and camera) is that I don’t want to ruin the moment by trying to capture the moment.  I had to be reminded of this more than once when I would get down on myself about not blogging or having the camera handy.  So instead of recording every little thing we did, we just lived it and made memories.  Maybe I will find some time to post more about our trips.  But honestly hat seems doubtful seeing as how we have been thrust back into life immediately upon our arrival back home…maybe I can post some pictures.  Yea, pictures will ease my guilt.